


this night is sparkling

by idolrapper



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: (Only 00 Line), Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - College/University, Childhood Friends, F/M, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Underage Drinking, Making Out, Mutual Pining, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 12:56:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20390056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idolrapper/pseuds/idolrapper
Summary: Jisung wonders if he should talk to his mother about this. Call her up right now, on this lumpy sofa in Nu Tau Tau, Ariana Grande blasting in the background and say:hey, Mom, this may come as a surprise to you but Jeno went wild after she left for college and I think I’m in love all over again. Yes, I acted like I hated her existence for the better part of my adolescence but listen, hear me out, respectfully, she is so hot. Why did I never realise Jeno Lee could be hot, too?





	this night is sparkling

**Author's Note:**

> truly not expecting anyone to read this but it's fine i did it for ME 😭😭😭 i've been listening to old taylor swift on repeat like i'm 15 again and also reading a lot of het fic like i'm 15 again (those of you who know what pairings don't @ me) and basically just needed to churn out this extremely self-indulgent mess where i get to wax poetic about girls through park jisung's eyes + a generously nostalgic serving of every heterosexual teen romance ever while i'm at it. 
> 
> notes: 1) 00z are all girls and their names are unchanged, except for donghyuck who has been edited to dongsook to avoid confusion 2) this is based on [#1](https://twitter.com/jenoluv00/statuses/1076111584479535104) \+ [#2](https://twitter.com/nohyuck/status/1077930754309419014) (oof i've tweeted so many jensung ideas but i can't believe this is the one i ended up writing... hopefully i can get around to another one day bc i love [them](http://cfile25.uf.tistory.com/image/99EF1733599EA1D00FCB18) so much!)

Jisung can’t remember a time when he didn’t have a crush on Jeno. It sprung forth from a battered Hot Wheels car and daffodil torn straight from his garden which Jisung gifted to Jeno, baby fat all rosy as he told her he loved her, like the first, brave chirp of a little chick. It evolved and it stagnated, but a crush by any other name is still: Jisung nursing the Coke Jaemin had placed in his hands and that Dongsook had immediately poured a generous helping of rum into when Jaemin turned around, squished on some sofa that has definitely seen better days - or not - and trying very hard not to stare at Jeno sandwiched between Jaemin and frat president Mark Lee.

Her head’s thrown back against Mark’s shoulder, throat glimmering with sweat, eyes squeezed shut and mouth pulled up in a lazy smile that Jaemin wastes no time in pressing her lips against. Jaemin tangles her fingers into Jeno’s hair, tugging her head back as she mouths over her jaw, leaving a sticky trail of mauve, until Jeno’s practically curved against Mark’s front, taut as a bowstring. Mark has a steady grip around Jeno’s hips, his fingertips toying with the skin right below Jeno’s white miniskirt. 

And _scene_. Jisung stares down at his rum-filled Coke again. 

He wonders if he should talk to his mother about this. Call her up right now, on this lumpy sofa in Nu Tau Tau, Ariana Grande blasting in the background and say: _hey, Mom, this may come as a surprise to you but Jeno went wild after she left for college and I think I’m in love all over again. Yes, I acted like I hated her existence for the better part of my adolescence but listen, hear me out, respectfully, she is so hot. Why did I never realise Jeno Lee could be hot, too?_

“You’re embarrassing me,” Jisung whines, trying to shuffle away from Jeno but she has a firm grip on his wrist, and to rub it in further, she tickles her cream fingernails under his chin in front of the entire student body, basically. He gives in, yet again, drooping over until his forehead is pressed into Jeno’s shoulder. 

“Listen, this isn’t particularly fun for me either,” Jeno tells him, as she continues their frogmarch over to the campus lawns, the sweeping stretch of bright green ending at the steps of the Atheneum and dotted with white tents for orientation, one of which Jeno has decided to make a beeline for. “I’m being forced to hang out with you against my own will. I don’t even like you.”

“I don’t like you more,” Jisung retorts.

“I made a voodoo doll of you and I stick pins in it every night,” Jeno says. She reaches up to brush her fingers over his nape, dipping beneath the neck of his sweater. The touch crackles across Jisung’s skin. “That’s why you have all these red spots on your back.” She hums after a moment, “I can give you a cream.”

“After you just told me you did black magic to give me bacne?” Jisung says, craning his neck down to raise an eyebrow at her. 

“And I can do black magic to taketh your bacne away,” Jeno drawls, “Your life is in my hands, Jisung Park. I’m nice like that.”

“Oh, is that so? Then you won’t mind me telling your mom about how well you’ve been taking care of me,” says Jisung, mouth slowly forming that nefarious smirk he’d mastered years ago when Jeno wouldn’t give him a turn on the Xbox or let him borrow her car to pick up his first girlfriend and he quickly figured out Jeno’s mother would always rule in his favour. Jeno knows the smirk well.

“But I am,” Jeno hisses. And Jisung knows that desperate tilt of her eyebrows well, too. It was usually accompanied by her smashing her hand over his mouth and madly whispering, _I’M SORRY, JISUNG, PLEASE DON’T CRY_ but Jeno wouldn’t do that here and Jisung doesn’t cry anymore, not even fakely. “I’ve shown you around campus, I paid for your lunch and now I’m taking you to sign up for the dance team so you’re not a complete loner at college.”

“I wouldn’t be a _complete_ loner,” Jisung says distantly, eyeing the tent they’re approaching. Across the awning, _SPARKLE AND SPUNK_ is written in glitter board, and one of the leaders is cartwheeling across the lawn, handing out a flyer every time she’s upright, her silver hair fluffy with momentum and her denim shorts riding up over her tan skin. Jisung watches her, as he mumbles to Jeno, “I have you.”

Jeno isn’t pressed against him anymore.

Jisung turns back to see her frozen in place a metre back. “You okay? This is the team, right?”

Jeno blinks. “Yeah, yeah it is. Let me introduce you to Dongsook.”

Jisung’s second day at college is much like the first. Except now he’s running on three hours of sleep because he gamed all night and then woke up to go to his orientation lecture for Japanese II (“Oh, Jisung. It’s time you started learning to like coffee,” says Chenle, who’d only started college the year before Jisung so frankly Jisung doesn’t have to listen to anything he says. He will continue to not understand coffee), his phone’s been intermittently blowing up with Whatsapp notifications from Dongsook Lee (_yooooooooo my baby bro! / auditions this friday @ 6pm! / it’s super chill so don’t be nervous / plus jeno will be there ;) / btw saw this meme and thought of u / hey, did it load yet? / why aren’t u replying? / WILL U BE THERE ON FRIDAY?_), and around 5PM, he finds himself in Jeno’s dorm room.

He’s sitting on Jaemin’s bed, wringing his hands in his lap as he tries not to zero in on the pair of lace panties lying on the floor. He doesn’t know if they’re Jaemin’s or Jeno’s. It’s hard to tell what side of the room they’re on. It’s a nebulous boundary, what with the innards of Jaemin’s Ryan-branded suitcase strewn across most of the carpet, Jeno’s bed horizontal against the open window, white voile fluttering over her pillow, while Jaemin’s is vertical against the far wall, her collection of love letters plastered above it for the world to read. 

Jisung finally decides that the panties are closer to Jeno’s bed. And then he gulps, dry and loud. 

“Why am I here?” he asks, glancing over at where Jeno’s organising coathangers by colour (that is, the colour of the coathanger itself, before she’s even put clothes on them). 

“Well, you should be helping me unpack like I helped _you_,” Jeno grumbles, swapping these two coathangers for the fourth time despite them being the _exact_ shade of pink velvet. Jisung doesn’t bother pointing this out because when he’d done it with the greens, Jeno literally growled at him. “But Jaemin wants to meet you.”

“Me?”

“I know, right?”

In that moment, the door bursts open and in walks Jaemin Na, her blonde hair and long beige cardigan whipping around her as though she’s accompanied by her very own wind machine. Jisung is pretty sure he’s never seen so many teeth directed at him before. 

“Helloooooo, I didn’t realise we were allowed to keep babies in the dorm,” Jaemin coos, arms stretching out and hands squeezing an imaginary stress ball that Jisung knows is about to be his cheeks and he is _terrified_. She glides over to Jisung, throwing her legs over his lap and in an unsurprising turn of events, pinches his ear between her fingers instead. “Hi there. I’m Jaemin. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Jisung looks at Jeno, trying to convey a cry for help through the blankest expression he can manage with Jaemin blowing into his ear. 

“Jaemin’s always wanted a sibling,” Jeno explains, foot stretching out to kick those lace panties under her bed. A blush crawls along the edge of her hoodie. “So for two whole years, I simply promoted you to her as the best younger brother she could ever ask for. And would you look at that, my plan worked and I’m finally free.”

“Finally free of having me as your younger brother?” Jisung asks. He didn’t think Jaemin was paying attention to anything they were saying, but she gasps, and then snorts against his shoulder. 

Jeno pauses. “I suppose you could put it like that.”

“Jisung?” Jaemin hums at him, playing with a strand of Jisung’s hair.

“Um, yes?”

“Will you have dinner with me and Jeno?”

Jisung hesitates to answer. There’s an unread message on his phone from Chenle asking him to come to this Chinese restaurant near campus tonight, and Jisung had been planning to bail on account of being too fucking tired to meet all of Chenle’s friends, but now that isn’t looking like the worst option available (the best being devouring one of the ramen cups his mom packed into his suitcase in the comfort of his own room, of course).

“Forget it,” Jeno calls out, “He doesn’t want to.”

“Yeah,” Jisung mumbles, glancing sideways at Jaemin but immediately turning his head again when he finds her gazing straight at him without even blinking. “I mean, I’d love to, but I already promised Chenle I’d go to dinner with him and his buddies from the Chinese-American Association.”

Jaemin lights up. “Like Renjun?”

“Uh, sure.” If that makes Jisung’s rejection easier to swallow. Who the fuck is Renjun?

“Give her a kiss from me,” Jaemin tells him.

“Will do,” Jisung accedes, watching Jeno stuff a red and a blue coathanger next to each other, dark hair curtaining her face so he can’t see her expression. He’s pretty sure it was tied up before, but admittedly he was too busy looking at Jeno’s bike shorts this whole time to have noticed what was going on anywhere above them.

(Later, when he’s two hours deep into a conversation about Marxism with Renjun over their own pot of huo guo, he receives a Facebook request from Jaemin. When he accepts it, she immediately messages him a photo of her and Jeno’s dinner, spread out across a gingham tablecloth on their floor, and in the corner he spots an untouched plate of chocolate peanut butter slices. _Oh_. His favourite. He’d recognise them anywhere, even if Jeno hasn’t baked them since she left for college.

He bypasses Jaemin, and goes straight to his chat with Jeno: _save me a slice?_)

According to Jeno, her mother was quite the wild one in high school. Jeno had shown Jisung her prom photos, the tulle top over hot pink disco pants, the frizzy hair and the blue eyeshadow. The stories of her getting high off multicoloured pills after ditching her date and losing her virginity in a foursome after prom night. Jisung couldn’t look Mrs Lee in the eye for a week after that.

And according to Jeno, that would not be her. After her prom date, captain of the lacrosse team, broke his leg and decided not to attend, she was forced to turn to her tenth best option who her mom had eagerly suggested: her scrawny family friend who was only just starting to surpass her in height, Jisung Park. Yes, Jisung took Jeno to senior prom. 

He still remembers how her wrist had felt in his hands as he slid her corsage on, how it somehow felt like _she_ was holding _him_ as they danced a slow dance, how her red lipstick smudged a little against his cheek, how she had accidentally guzzled down about half a litre of spiked punch because she was thirsty and then ended up blacking out in the corridor on Jisung’s lap. _I didn’t want this to happen_, Jeno bemoaned into Jisung’s suited thigh, _it was meant to be perfect. I’m not like this, Jisung. You don’t think I’m like this, do you?_

A week later, Jisung was asked out by a girl who sat behind him in AP Japanese, and Jeno decided that she’d never touch a drop of alcohol for as long as she lived.

“You’re going to a party with me tonight,” is the first thing Jeno says when she barges into Jisung’s room at the end of the first week of Fall. Jisung’s glad his roommate isn’t in, because he’s already gotten, “Dude, why do you know so many girls?” a gazillion times too many and he’s tired of explaining how Jeno barely counts as a _girl_ he knows (Jisung, of course, will come to regret this thought in around three hours when Jaemin has her tongue down Jeno’s throat and a hand up Jeno’s skirt).

“Fine,” Jisung says, even pausing his game and pushing off his headphones just to tell her this.

Jeno, who’d been in the middle of stalking over to Jisung, an argument already loaded on her tongue, freezes, eyes widening in surprise. “Come again?”

“I said _fine_, I’ll come to your stupid party,” Jisung says, snapping his headphones over his ears again. Sue him, he’s mildly curious. Plus, Renjun will be there. She already invited him.

Jeno grins, leaning down to smack an efficient kiss against Jisung’s ear-cheek region. Jisung’s gaze snaps up, even wider than hers had been. “It’s only going to stupid because you’ll be there,” she tells him solemnly.

Jisung was fourteen when his crush on Jeno turned ugly. Puberty meant acne flaring up where he never expected it, dreams of the embarrassingly damp variety, slamming doors in parents’ faces, and also this: asking Jeno to use her Xbox at Thanksgiving and when she said no, he just upped and left the room. Throwing out the chocolate peanut butter slice she slid over to him in the cafeteria on her way to her table, because the note stuck to the plastic wrap read _have a good day and work hard, jisungie! :D_ and his friends had laughed at it. 

Realising that Jeno would never see him as anything more than a younger brother and acting accordingly.

Dongsook pours Sprite into a shot glass for Jeno so she doesn’t feel left out and vodka for the rest of them. The way Jeno observes Jisung taking his very first shot, over the bottom of her glass and her pinkie finger, is oddly dark, not the motherly pride Jisung might’ve expected. But then again, Jeno was never big on alcohol, anyway. So why do her eyes drop to Jisung’s bottom lip as he licks the taste of lemon from it? Why do they slowly drag up until they’re at his eyes again, the corners of her mouth kitten-sharp and lemon-sour? 

Jisung doesn’t mean to look at her, but when he does, nothing on Earth, Heaven or Hell could make him look away. 

Jeno breaks first. Mark Lee gets an arm around her waist, laughing about something Jisung can’t hear, and Jaemin shoves a Coke into Jisung’s chest before leaving for the dancefloor after them.

“I’m going to head home,” Jisung tells Renjun later, when he’s done looking. He would’ve been fine with walking back this close to being sober but Renjun insists on a personal escort courtesy of her and Dongsook making out in the back of an Uber car next to him. Jisung’s hardly generous with his thanks when he finally tumbles out of the car three minutes after he got in but it’s fine because Renjun doesn’t even hear him, and the driver wastes no time in speeding off to their apartment outside of campus.

His roommate isn’t in, as usual. Jisung sinks into his bed after changing in the dark, texts his mom (_first college party, not entirely life-changing but also not NOT life-changing? i feel so confused, mom_) and promptly passes out.

For about forty blissful minutes before there’s a loud knock on his door. 

Jisung drags himself out of bed, grumbling under his breath about his roommate forgetting his key _again_ and pulls open the door, ready to chew him out all dishevelled hair and sticky eyes and _oh_. The reddest his face has ever been. 

“What are you doing here?” Jisung croaks, throat still dry with sleep, and now the sight of Jeno standing outside his room, smelling of smoke and fruity perfume, a bruise blossoming on her throat, and the shyest her face has ever been despite it all. 

“Being here,” Jeno says. 

“What?”

“_Being here_,” Jeno repeats. She pushes past him, taking his wrist with her as she goes, and he barely manages to shut and lock the door before she tugs him over to his bed and gently pushes him back onto it. 

“What do you mean?” Jisung asks, immediately squawking when Jeno reaches back to unzip her skirt and let it fall past her legs, a pair of black boyshorts framing her pale legs. He covers his eyes and screams again when she reaches underneath her shirt and unclips her bra, letting that drop to the ground too.

“Relax, Jisung,” Jeno says evenly, “These are my pyjamas.” And then she slides into bed next to him, shoving at his chest until he gives her enough space (three quarters of the mattress, apparently) and pulls the quilt over the top of them, trapping them in possibly the weirdest situation Jisung’s experienced to date.

“Okay,” Jisung says, inhaling and exhaling. And again. And again. “Why are you here?”

“Because I’m here,” Jeno says.

“You said that already,” Jisung argues. 

“You don’t understand, Jisung. I’m _here_. In front of you,” Jeno whispers, her hands balling up against Jisung’s chest. “Why don’t you ever notice me?”

Jisung frowns. Does she mean - “I notice you. I notice you all the time. Maybe you don’t notice I notice you, but I do.”

Jeno reaches up to smooth Jisung’s eyebrows with the pad of her thumb. Her gaze is downcast, all coy, and maybe a little vulnerable. She blurts out, “Then why don’t you do something about it?” and that’s when Jisung realises, for the second time in his life.

He shifts so he’s hovering above Jeno, faster than she’d been expecting if her gasp is anything to go by, and cups a hand around her cheek, lowering his weight in a measured way that has him gently pressed against her body. “Is this enough?” Jisung murmurs, tasting Sprite on his tongue as Jeno exhales shakily, their lips a fraction apart. A fraction too much, it seems, because Jeno’s answer is in her twisting her fingers in Jisung’s hair and pushing her mouth up against his and the way Jisung can feel her toes curling into the back of his calf, holy _shit_.

“Wait, wait,” Jeno says, dragging Jisung off her by the hold she has on his hair.

“You okay?” Jisung asks, kneeling back to give her space, but also because he can’t breathe seeing Jeno’s lips spit-slick and red with him at such proximity. 

Jeno nods. “Yeah, I just - I was meant to do this differently,” she tells him, as she leans over the bed to rummage through her bag for something, shirt stretching over her chest, and okay, at this point Jisung just closes his eyes. “Found it,” she announces. “Hey, why are your eyes closed? Did I not just make a whole point about being _right here?_”

“I can’t look at you like this,” Jisung mumbles.

“Wow, okay,” Jeno laughs, sliding her legs out from underneath Jisung so she can sit up too. “Are you sure?” she practically _purrs_, “What is it the kids say? I’m a whole snack, you know. You never have to close your eyes around me.” And suddenly Jisung feels something slide over his stomach, dragging his t-shirt in its wake. It doesn’t feel like Jeno, in fact it feels oddly metallic. Cool. Like _wheels_. 

His eyes open.

“Is that--”

“Yeah,” Jeno confirms, smiling serenely as she reaches out for Jisung’s hand, placing the Hot Wheels car on his palm. “I found it this summer. Felt like it was a sign.”

“I think it was,” Jisung says, rolling the car over his heartline, his middle finger and back again. “Jeno?”

“Hm?”

“I don’t have a daffodil on me,” he starts, grabbing Jeno’s hand again. “But I’ll get you a whole bouquet tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” Jeno echoes.

“For now,” Jisung continues, driving the car over his palm and onto Jeno’s, interlocking their fingers over the now-warm surface. “I just wanted to tell you: I love you, Jeno noona.”

“Oh, Jisung,” Jeno says, voice a little wet, “You haven’t called me that since you were five.”

**Author's Note:**

> smash the kudos if you agree that jisung x fem!00z is the cutest concept ever. but please leave me a comment if you liked this, i will be eternally grateful and it will probably motivate me to actually finish the other wips i've been starting left and right. as always, find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/nohyuck) / [cc](https://curiouscat.me/millennium) ♡


End file.
